An opportunity for all the professional complainer types to have a winge and I’m sure requests for ‘compensation’ are already on there way as no doubt some individuals will be declaring themselves ‘outraged’. I see from the story the pilot is being sent on ‘diversity training’.

Let’s face facts, he said the sort of things that people say when they think they are not being overheard. I’m sure gay people say things about straight people, black people things about white people, catholics about protestents etc.

Are we now living in a world where we must say nothing that could in theory offend somebody else ?

“Are we now living in a world where we must say nothing that could in theory offend somebody else?”

Charles – spot on – ooopppps, I may now have dalmations issuing a writ!

Perhaps we should all have icons (like the smilies) by our names so we can have seperate badges to identify

gender

sexual preference

religion

political views

skin colour

height

weight

council or private housing

First / Business – Premium Economy

or just Economy

becasue at least that way we will have some idea in advance, who we could possibly be offending and then decide how offensive the communication we are about to make could possibly be considered. We can then prepare for any onslaught that may follow.

The fact that one poster uses an age related reference in his/her cyberspace name, could actually be considered as offensive to the older generation……………

The USA is the kingdom of Political Correctness!! That said, I had an awkward situation at the pool of the Hilton Buenos Aires back in February where the flight deck crew from United were sitting next to our two loungers, and started talking quite loudly about which flight attendants they would or would not do, swearing, drinking cans of Heineken that they had no doubt brought with them from the aircraft, and then leaving the empties lying around their chairs. I am not a prude about language, but had any child been around these two he/she would of had a rather uncomfortable lesson in macho male attitude towards women. The unfortunate thing was that they both were reading documents that were clearly stamped with the United Logo so anyone would have realised who they were, and their discussion was about on which sectors they ‘scored’ the most often, with whom, where, and how. As a company, United might want to advise their crew that even out of uniform, if they are so blatant about what they do in public, it can have damage to their company’s reputation.

Where a remark is intended to be private and there is no intent to cause disrespect or promote prejudice then I think these things should be allowed to slip away unremarked, perhaps save for a brief apology. As we saw with Gordon Brown’s racism remark or the Vice Presidential expletive, the press loves this stuff.I have three yardsticks, being respectful, being appropriate and not fostering prejudice or hatred. That does not mean I have to like everybody though…

One of the problems of modern society is that the true facts around a situation can be altered by those who shout loudest, make a fuss, cause a scene.

When I was at university I remember we had some very strong willed animal rights supporters who probably represented no more than 1% of the student body but through campaigns of constant disruption to events managed to get vegan food introduced onto the canteen menu.

The overwhelming majority of students and staff didn’t want vegan food, didn’t care about the issues behind why this group wanted vegan food but this group achieved their aim by being annoying. After a while the university dropped the vegan option when day after day it was unsold because the vegan group didn’t eat there.

We must remember that although we should hear minority views they are just that, a minority. The views, opinions and rights of the majority take precedence.

I am not sure whether this is in the right thread as I certainly do not wish to make light of what I consider to be an extremely serious situation. Serious, not from a security point of view, but purely from a personal dignity point of view.

I have seen the daughter of this “TSA victim” live on Fox news, where she holds no grudges against the TSA staff, her beef, is the TSA Protocol” used when searching elderly people in wheel chairs.

On the same subject, in Texas, the law makers are trying to pass a new bill which could make it a criminal offence for security personel to Inappropriately touch passengers.

Talking about intimate touching I recently flew out of Beijing and was quiet surprised when I was beckoned over for a pat down by a female security officer and all I can say is, she was very thorough indeed and to be honest, I felt more comfortable with a female doing it than if a male had been.

Martyn, I am still laughing at your terrific idea about all of us wearing badges so everyone will know who they’re insulting today and why. YES!! We can color code them and use different fonts so every single possible instance of political incorrectness can be identified. Perhaps if we actually did this, some of the PC that is wrecking the world will go away.

I rarely listen or watch video from the internet, but if some unfortunate pilot disgraced himself on an open mic, it should indeed just be forgotten. Surely this behaviour cannot be compared to easily identified pilots making asses of themselves at a hotel pool.with smutty remarks and stories loudly told. These are the guys who deserve a smack upside the head in the form of unpaid leave and participation in boring training classes.

Oh, oh! I regularly stretch and bend in the galley. A big no-no I just read in martyn’s link. I’m 5-10 and wear the same size jeans as my 6-5 brother. I have a new knee and if I didn’t get up and stretch every half hour, the flight attendants would be REALLY annoyed when they had to carry me off the plane. I wait until they are not actually working in the galley to do my stretches, of course. If there are 4 or 5 FAs up in front galley yakking away, I just walk back to the rear and stretch there.

Besides the hidden fees and hours sat on an airplane without any clue as to why you’re holding, there are certain things that airlines will never tell you. We tracked down three U.S. pilots and squeezed out some of their dirty little secrets. Due to the sensitive nature, we’re not naming names

10. Even Pilots Have to Pee

“Anyone who has sat near the front of the plane since 9/11 has surely noticed when the pilots are ready to take a bathroom break, or ‘physiological needs’ break, as the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) calls it. When nature calls we alert the flight attendants on the intercom. The attendants set up a barrier to the cockpit and give us an all-clear signal to open the door, as we don’t have a separate bathroom and have to use the same one as everyone else. A few months back my fellow pilot picked up the wrong handset and accidentally asked the entire aircraft if we could ‘come out and pee?'”

9. There Is Such Thing as the “Good Seats”

“If you are susceptible to motion sickness, your best bet is to sit over the wing. An airplane is like a teeter-totter. When the pilot moves the nose of the plane up or down, the seats in the extreme front and back are going to move a greater distance. And as a rule, the tail tends to move more than the front, so stay away from the rear if motion is a problem for you.”

8. The Fasten Seatbelt Sign Is No Joke

“Turbulence isn’t dangerous to a jet aircraft, but it is to the people in it. Past incidents of severe turbulence have slammed people into the ceiling and then dropped them to the floor, causing very serious injuries. If your flight crew tells you to be seated because of turbulence, I highly recommend you heed their warning.”

7. There Are No Free Lunches

“Thanks to the airline bankruptcies starting in 2000, few U.S. domestic airlines still provide food to its crews. As pilots we are allowed to eat in the cockpit once we’re at cruising altitude, but we’re usually eating something from the food courts in the airport terminal: pre-prepared wrapped sandwiches, slices of pizza. Not quite the glamorous lifestyle it used to be.”

6. And You Thought Filling Your Car Was Expensive

“The number-one expense for an airline is fuel, which isn’t going to get any cheaper. And because the cost of gas fluctuates so much, so does the price of the flight. Your average two-engine, narrow-body aircraft burns about 15 gallons of gas per minute at cruising altitude. So you can imagine what the gas bill would be on a transcontinental flight.”

5. The FAA Has a Sense of Humor, Sort of

“Airplanes follow an invisible map of highways and avenues in the sky in order to make it to their destinations. There are thousands of virtual points in the sky that pilots follow on their route, each with unique names so the air-traffic controllers can tell us where to go and how to get there. The FAA has gotten creative when naming some of these points (which must be five characters), like these over southern Florida—UFIRD, DONLD, and TRUMP over Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, or FINNS, PYRUT, and BUFIT for Florida native Jimmy Buffett. My favorites are at the Kansas City Airport, honoring its local cuisine on the arrival procedure with SPICY and BARBQ.”

4. The Deal With Electronics

“Nothing has ever been proven, but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that electronics really interfere with an aircraft’s flight instruments. The most likely culprits are things that transmit a signal, like a cell phone or a computer operating in Wi-Fi mode, which emits an electronic pulse or wave. But new aircrafts are being engineered for the wireless age so you should see more and more allowance of electronic devices in the future.”

3. Your Co-Pilot Could be More Experienced Than You Think

“The turmoil of the airline industry over the last 20 years or so has caused many airlines to go out of business or shrink in size, thus laying off massive numbers of employees. If an airline captain loses his job at one airline and goes to another, he or she will start over as a co-pilot at entry-level pay and will be given no credit for their experience.”

2. The Air Isn’t Immune to Office Romances

“All the crew stays at the same hotel, but I remember a couple years ago the pilots’ wives pushed for flight attendants to be at a different hotel than the pilots because they didn’t want to make it easy for their husbands to cheat.”

1. Crews Are Trained in More Than Just Emergency Exits

“Terrorism is a big deal nowadays. Most flight attendants and pilots are trained for those instances and taught self-defense as well as how to detect certain behaviors. Pilots are also able to sign up for a voluntary intensive program that is held at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. For one week they learn things like how to shoot a gun and disable someone carrying one. When they finish the program they’re licensed to carry a gun into the cockpit with them.”________________________________________